If the numbers being reported in the Australian press regarding the finances of Kevin Walters’ three-year deal to coach St Helens are correct, Saints have gone all out. According to the Courier Mail, Walters is set to earn around £1million over the course of his deal, once he leaves his post as Australian national coach following what he will hope will be their victorious World Cup campaign this autumn.

When the head coach position became available after Paul Rowley’s departure, fans and media were unsurprisingly wrapped up in speculation. Chairman Eamonn McManus seemingly turned his attention to Australia to find the club’s next coach. Media reports suggested former Queensland State of Origin representative and England Rugby Union player Ben Te’o had interviewed for the job. The club were also supposedly sniffing around recently sacked St George Illawarra Dragons coach Shane Flanagan. Fans even got themselves wrapped up in hopes that the Brisbane Broncos might pull the trigger on sacking Michael Maguire, freeing ‘Madge’ up for the role. 

Walters’ name had not really been mentioned by any outlets, and therefore his announcement at 5:30am on Thursday shocked much of the rugby league world. 

A sense of excitement does seem to be back in St Helens, however. Whilst not being mathematically out of the playoff spots for 2026, they now have a serious coach to look forward to seeing at the helm come 2027. 

The Kangaroos coach brings with him a significant profile and a coaching career that could, at a minimum, be described as interesting. Optimists would point towards his guidance of the Brisbane Broncos to the 2023 NRL Grand Final or, closer to home, him taking Catalans Dragons to the semi-finals of the 2009 Super League season. A cynic would probably draw your attention to the fact that Walters was sacked from both jobs within twelve months of achieving both feats. 

You could also make the argument that his four-year stint as Queensland head coach in State of Origin is another positive on his CV. But coaching in the Origin ‘arena,’ much like being Australia coach, demands an entirely different set of skills and provides a different challenge than, say, Castleford away. Not an easier one, but a different one.

Crucially, nothing about Walters’ experience sets him up any better to deal with what got Paul Rowley sacked. When a coach is sacked after only seventeen games, among which were scattered a heap of impressive results including a Good Friday derby win over St Helens, form is clearly not the driving factor. Saints officials and fans would be lying to themselves if they believed the decision was not made against the idea that he had failed against the number of intangible metrics that come with being at a club like St Helens.

He simply didn’t get the St Helens ‘way.’

Perhaps as non-St Helens fans, we are not, and never will be, able to fully understand the St Helens ‘way.’ The exact meaning of it seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Yet to see the coach of a team fighting among the playoff spots after only nineteen games be sacked on the eve of a derby with Wigan seems just as difficult to understand.

Sure, losing 46-0 at home to league strugglers Toulouse wasn’t ideal for Rowley’s case. Neither were the signings of Nene Macdonald or Jackson Hastings, both of whom have struggled to settle in the team. The decision to recruit the latter and immediately make him captain was arguably not one of Rowley’s finest. Combining both Rowley’s actions in the role, and the decision to sack him, the squad has been left disjointed and not quite knowing what it is meant to resemble. St Helens have found themselves in something akin to a rugby league no man’s land. 

This is exactly what Walters will be walking into in 2027. Big questions will have to be asked about who is and isn’t necessary in the squad. 

Every week the answer to whether Tristan Sailor and Jack Welsby can co-exist in the same XIII seems to change. Sailor’s recent long-term contract extension, combined with Walters’ history with him at the Brisbane Broncos, probably means he sticks around. Walters gave Sailor his NRL debut and backed him to be a sufficient understudy to Reece Walsh. At the same time, while young Harry Robertson impressed at centre early in the season, his playstyle and natural instincts suggest his future is at six. 

And while some fans seem to want Jackson Hastings fired out of a cannon, the ACL injury of incumbent half-back George Whitby, which will leave him out until at least April, means a solution at seven is just as complex. 

Thus, the problems at St Helens cannot simply be solved by sticking a plaster in the shape of a big rugby league name over them. And if early results couldn’t buy Paul Rowley enough time to keep the job, what exactly are they looking for in Kevin Walters? 

Whether or not Walters is up to the task of producing results, or understanding the St Helens ‘way,’ will define whether their expensive gamble pays off.